[Sosfbay-discuss] 77% of GA Vote No Confidence - CC Must GO! Voluntary Reboot Called for!

[JamBoi]

Dear Fellow Greens, 

77% voted NO CONFIDENCE in the CC!!! 

Therefore Resolved: The entire CC (minus the members
elected/appointed this weekend) should voluntarily
resign immediately in accordance with the clearly
expressed will of the General Assembly (56 Yes to 16
No) 77% of the GA voted in favor of the 'Reboot the
CC' proposal (included below) this weekend in SF.

If CC members care about the party more than they care
about retaining their own power they should
immediately resign.  Let them each demonstrate that
they have the best interest in the party by resigning.
 Let real leaders lead the way.  The Co-Cos could set
the example by leading off.  If these people are
actually greens and not just run of the mill greedhead
power hungry politicos let them do the right thing. 
This is a Lead, follow, or get out of the way moment. 
Let the leaders lead!

Some perspective: 51% would be a majority.  In the
popular press anything over 56% is considered a
'landslide'.  60% is a supermajority in most
organizations, 66% 2/3rds in others.  This was a vote
of more than 3/4 of the delegates!  Hello!  

Typically, in a Westminster system parliament votes no
confidence, government must either:
   1. resign, or
   2. seek a parliamentary dissolution and request a
general election.

The last successful no confidence motion in the UK was
in March 1979 when the Opposition motion was passed by
just one vote - 311 to 310. Parliament was then
dissolved in April and the general election took place
in May.  Would that our 'green' crew would be so
respectful of our General Assembly!

So by a technicality we did not reach the 80%
threshold that a policy decision by the GA needs. 
However this does not stop the CC members from doing
the right thing voluntarily.  If they care about the
party more than themselves they will resign.

If the CC members selfishly refuse there is another
way we can enforce the will of the GA:  Each County
Council and region can call for the resignation of
their RR.  As a County Council Member of the GP of
Santa Clara County I'll be happy to lead the way.

Drink Green uniTEA not factional koolaid!

Drew Johnson
GP of Santa Clara County Council Member and Delegate
to the General Assembly

Below is the text of the 'Reboot Proposal'
________________________________

TITLE: RESOLVING THE IMPASSE: 
RECONSTITUTING THE GPCA COORDINATING COMMITTEE

PRESENTERS: Mike Wyman (mswyman at comcast.net),
Marilyn Ditmanson (mditmanson at sbcglobal.net)

APPROVED BY: Green Party of Marin county council

BACKGROUND: 
The GPCA Coordinating Committee (CC) has been
deadlocked since October 2006. This is a result of an
ongoing conflict that goes back to 2001. Many hours of
meetings over the past 6 years have been rendered
useless due to infighting around "the LA situation,"
meaning which group from LA gets to vote on the CC.
Proposals of mediation and compromise have only
resulted in more infighting. The number of regions
with contested seats has instead increased to 4. The
result is that the CC is no longer able to perform its
main function of planning plenaries.

This proposal reconstitutes the CC with people who are
not and have not been involved in the party
infighting, much as a professional committee in the
business world will be reconstituted when unable to do
its work. It is
reconstituted with representation more proportionate
to
membership, as California has promoted in the national
party.

Part of the CC deadlock has been caused by the chaos
around the facilitation procedures for the CC. Using
supermajority voting thresholds for facilitation
decisions has resulted in the following situations:

* meetings being unable to be held at all, and no
items even discussed in the interest of
consensus-building, due to lack of 2/3 approval of an
agenda

* facilitators taking 45-minute stacks on whether to
add 5 minutes to an item
* long stretches of valuable meeting time wasted on
discussions of whether to add an item to the agenda,
alter the agenda or choose a new facilitator

* two different voting thresholds applying based
solely on whether the vote itself is taken online or
during a
teleconference, allowing proposals to be subject to
manipulations based on voting thresholds.

This proposal also clarifies basic facilitation
procedures for GPCA coordinating committee (CC)
meetings in order to avoid such situations. These
facilitation procedures are based on two main
premises:
1. The decision-making body has authority over its
agenda.
2. Basic facilitation decisions, such as agenda
approval, agenda amendment, and addition or
subtraction of discussion time, are not intended to
involve whole separate consensus processes and stacks
of clarifying questions, concerns and affirmations on
the facilitation decision. (Note that the facilitation
rules passed out at plenaries do not suggest this,
either.)

This proposal is a combination of a variety of ideas
for solving the CC's problems that have been brought
forward over recent months. The presenters hope that
adoption of this proposal will finally end the CC's
infighting based on historical animosities and give
the new CC a real opportunity to do its
bylaws-mandated job.

PROPOSAL: 
I.The General Assembly hereby reconstitutes the GPCA
Coordinating Committee (CC)

a. All seats on the CC are vacant as of 30 days from
the passage of this proposal.

b. Per Paragraph 7-1.2 of the GPCA bylaws, the GA
shall
allocate the 16 regional representative seats
proportionally to the Green Party membership in each
region. This calculation shall be performed by the
outgoing Liaison to the Secretary of State (Larry
Cafiero) according to the Method of Equal Proportions
described in the appendix to the GPCA bylaws.

c. All regions shall announce new elections to fill
the
regional representative seats as soon as possible.
Regions must hold open, transparent elections with at
least 3 weeks notice distributed as widely as possible
in the region. Notice of upcoming regional
representative vacancies shall be posted to the county
contacts list as soon as possible after passage of
this proposal. Regions without alternate processes may
adopt temporary alternate processes for the purpose of
filling the seats in a timely manner.

d. No one who has served on the CC, or who has claimed
to serve on the CC, as representative or alternate,
over the course of the past 5 years, is eligible to
run for or fill any representative or alternate seat
on the CC for the next 2 years.

e.Transitional term lengths shall be varied in order
to stagger the ending dates. This depends on the new
apportionment by the Liaison, but end dates of the
transitional terms would be expected to fall as
follows:

Even-Numbered Years
1 Emerald	January 2008
2 At-large 	spring GA 2008
1 San Francisco	May 2008
1 Silicon	June 2008
1 East Bay	July 2008
3 Los Angeles	November 2008
1 San Diego/Imperial	August 2008
1 ORSB	November 2008

Odd-Numbered Years
2 At-large	spring GA 2009
2 Central	May 2009
1 North Bay	May 2009
1 East Bay	July 2009
1 Monterey Bay	August 2009
1 Central Coast	August 2009
1 ORSB	November 2009

II.CC Facilitation Guidelines GPCA CC meeting
facilitation shall proceed according to the following
guidelines:

a.Proposals for CC meetings must be posted to the CC
listserv at least one week in advance of a scheduled
meeting.

b. CC meeting agendas shall be approved by the CC
prior to or at the beginning of a meeting, with a
simple majority threshold for approval. 

c. Changes in announced facilitation require a simple
majority threshold for approval.

d. Adding time to an agenda item or altering the
approved agenda requires a simple majority approval of
the CC. 

e. Adding a last minute item that was not submitted to
the CC list one week prior to the meeting requires a
2/3 threshold.

f. The CC prefers to discuss decision items on
teleconferences and at in-person meetings. If an item
is discussed at a meeting and scheduled for an online
vote, the threshold for that vote is the same as if
the vote had occurred during the meeting (2/3 for
regular meetings, 80% for a special meeting not
scheduled at a prior meeting at least a week in
advance). If an item goes to an online vote without
being discussed at a meeting, it has an 80% threshold.

g. Decisions may not be made after the regularly
scheduled adjournment time of the meeting unless a
majority (over half) decides to extend the call for a
specific amount of time. Decisions must then be made
within the time of the approved extension.

h. Simple majority approval votes on basic
facilitation decisions can be done by asking quickly
for "ayes" and "nays," and only going to a roll call
if approval is unclear.

i. The new CC is requested to hire a Secretary to take
thorough minutes of meetings, post them to the CC
list, amend them according to posted corrections, and
post the final version to both the CC listserv and the
archive of minutes. The new CC shall draft a job
description and hiring criteria for this position.

j. The new CC shall form a schedule of its basic tasks
that follow from the GPCA bylaws and integrate this
schedule with the 2-year GPCA work plan, when it is
adopted.

TIMELINE: 
Vacancies effective upon passage. Elections may take
place starting 2 weeks after passage of this proposal.
Elected CC members may meet on teleconferences but may
not make any decisions until a quorum of 14 is
achieved. 

RESOURCES:  Hiring a Secretary will require the CC
budgeting funds for this.

___________________

JamBoi: Jammy, The Sacred Cow Slayer
The Green Parties' #1 Blogger
http://dailyJam.blogspot.com

"To the brave belong all things"
Celt's invading Etrusca reply to nervous Romans around 400BC

"Live humbly, laugh often and love unconditionally" (anon)


 
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